ABSTRACT
Given certain favourable circumstances, notably high cost of movement or transport of goods, a tendency for patterns of land use to be arranged in rings around rural settlements may arise from the basic economic principles governing the location of agricultural activities. By and large, where zoning occurs in tropical Africa, the crops more distant from the homestead or compound are those which can most successfully be produced by extensive methods, even though their value, and their profitability, may not be high. This, the compound, garden or kitchen-garden land, is of widespread occurrence throughout tropical Africa. Some comment on the effects of settlement pattern on the zones of land use has already been made, but needs a little enlargement. Clearly in a situation of complete dispersal of small family farm units, each with its own lands close at hand, the likelihood of distance having an effect on land-use zoning is small.
